Lightweight, plastic disposable cutlery is commonly used, for example, in chain restaurants and by airlines when serving meals. The cutlery is of a conventional shape corresponding to the shape of metal cutlery and is not particularly strong. The spoon, fork and especially the knife (known generically as eating utensils) may bend in use and can be quite disconcerting for the user and difficult to manage. In fact, these utensils are generally ineffective when used with anything other than soft food.
Cutlery set assemblies for camping comprising a spoon, fork and knife are also known. Generally, the spoon, fork and knife are of a conventional shape and are attached together by a tongue and groove arrangement. Due to the demands required of the utensils when camping, the cutlery set is usually made from metal, such as aluminium, to provide strength and rigidity to the utensils which would be lacking in a plastic equivalent. As such, the cutlery set assembly used for camping is invariably more costly and is too expensive simply to be disposed of after use. The tongue and groove arrangement is also not a secure way of assembling the cutlery as a unit and may result in the loss of a utensil in which case a new set must be bought. The tongue and groove arrangement also makes that utensil having the tongue portions awkward to grip.
RU 2041698 describes a stainless steel spoon and fork assembly in which a section of the fork handle is tubular and hollow and provided with a longitudinal slot. The spoon has a solid tubular handle section whose outside diameter is equal to the inside diameter of the tubular section of the fork handle. The spoon handle may be slotted inside the fork handle to form a single implement having a fork at one end and a spoon at the other.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,327,650 describes a knife, fork and spoon assembly in which the knife has a handle with a recess on each of two opposed faces of the handle; the flat handles of the spoon and fork can be held within these recesses.
U.S. Pat. No. 33,703 describes a knife, fork and spoon assembly in which the knife and fork have interlocking hollow handles and the flat handle of the spoon can be nested in the handle of the knife.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,389,412 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,470,492 both describe a knife, fork, spoon and tin opener assembly in which the tin opener has a hollow handle forming a container for holding the knife, fork and spoon.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,317,284 describes an assembly of a knife, fork and spoon whose handles are magnetic; the assembly is held together by magnetic attraction.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,524,512 describes a knife, fork and spoon assembly in which the handles can be stacked and the handles have catches for keeping the knife, fork and spoon in a stacked condition.
U.S. Pat. No. 32,916 describes an assembly of a knife and a utensil having a spoon at one end and a fork formed at a second end. The handles of the two utensils have flanges that hold the assembly together.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,439,882 describes a container attached to the handle of a knife; the container holds a fork and spoon.
U.S. Design 347,975 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,377,035 each describes a container that can be fitted over the heads of a knife, fork and spoon to hold them together.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,053,387 describes a knife, fork and spoon assembly; flanges are provided on opposed sides of the handle of the knife for holding the spoon and fork.
U.S. Designs 284,442 and 362,160 each describes a knife, fork and spoon assembly; ribs are provided on opposed sides of the handle of the knife and on one side of the handles of the spoon and fork. The ribs of the spoon and fork are sized to fit tightly into the gaps between the ribs of the knife to hold the assembly together
U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,403 describes an assembly of a first utensil having a spoon formed at one end and a fork formed at the other end and a second utensil having a spoon formed at one end and a knife formed at the other end. The handles of the two implements can be clipped together.
U.S. Design 318 600 describes a knife, fork and spoon assembly in which the handles are held in a stack by a pin passing through a hole in the handles of the implements.
U.S. Pat. No. 34,098 describes a metallic knife, fork and spoon assembly in which the knife handle is hollow and includes a pocket for holding a fork and spoon.
An object of the present invention is to provide a cutlery set assembly which overcomes at least some of the problems of the prior art. A further object of the invention is to provide a lightweight compact disposable cutlery set assembly where the spoon, fork and knife are of a design that can make them strong.